People who say that this is one of the worst films ever made have simply not seen enough films. It's bad, but not that bad. And even though the miniatures and cg effects are sub-TV movie level, they are not that distracting once you get used to them. No, what really kills this flick is that it is all set up and no real story, no tie ups, no climax, no ending. It's as if the screenplay was only 2/3ds done when they started filming. Virtually every plot point that is set up and every character developed in the first hour is dropped like a hot rock in the last 20 minutes in favor of just killing off the bad guy and getting the thing over with. This is especially true of the thief character played quite well by the very hot Laura Harring--she is given a really big set up in the first part of the film--even having her own fight scenes-- and ends up having nothing to do with the climax at all! I thought that she was excellent in the movie and that her character could have fronted a series of DTV flicks all on her own. Instead she--and all the other supporting players--are simply forgotten.
I'm a big fan of old action adventure serials from the 30s and 40s, so some fake looking special effects don't bother me if the story is fun and good. I mean I prefer that to great special effects and no story. When Derailed started off, I was thinking "this this isn't nearly as bad as everyone says. It has a hot chick who can actually act, a great car chase, some good fighting, this seems to be leading up to a good story and Van Damme seems to be doing a much better job acting." But, once JCVD and Laura Harring get on the train, and the various characters on the train are introduced at length, and the bad guys take over, and the mysterious virus is let loose, it becomes obvious that the set up was all the filmmakers had worked out. The rest of the actual plot was just "Van Damme fights bad guys on train." I mean, I at least expected the obnoxious Texan and the dorky Aussie to have something to do with the story, as much time as was spent setting up their characters. Except for one very unlikely bit involving JCVD's son that actually tied into something that had happened earlier, nothing from the set up had a pay off. I foresaw lots of plot points and twists that just never happened--in fact I imagined a much better movie than the one that I was actually watching. All this leads me to believe that the script wasn't finished when they started filming and the filmmakers were basically just making the thing up as they went along (either that or they hired the laziest damn screenwriters of all time).
I'm a big fan of old action adventure serials from the 30s and 40s, so some fake looking special effects don't bother me if the story is fun and good. I mean I prefer that to great special effects and no story. When Derailed started off, I was thinking "this this isn't nearly as bad as everyone says. It has a hot chick who can actually act, a great car chase, some good fighting, this seems to be leading up to a good story and Van Damme seems to be doing a much better job acting." But, once JCVD and Laura Harring get on the train, and the various characters on the train are introduced at length, and the bad guys take over, and the mysterious virus is let loose, it becomes obvious that the set up was all the filmmakers had worked out. The rest of the actual plot was just "Van Damme fights bad guys on train." I mean, I at least expected the obnoxious Texan and the dorky Aussie to have something to do with the story, as much time as was spent setting up their characters. Except for one very unlikely bit involving JCVD's son that actually tied into something that had happened earlier, nothing from the set up had a pay off. I foresaw lots of plot points and twists that just never happened--in fact I imagined a much better movie than the one that I was actually watching. All this leads me to believe that the script wasn't finished when they started filming and the filmmakers were basically just making the thing up as they went along (either that or they hired the laziest damn screenwriters of all time).